The settlement history of Jerusalem in the eighth and seventh centuries BC

In this rejoinder to a recent article by Nadav Na'aman, I suggest that: A) The expansion of Jerusalem to the southwestern hill and the settlement prosperity in the Judahite countryside did not start before the middle of the 8^th century and reached their peak in the last third of that century; B) The population growth in Jerusalem and Judah was so dramatic that it can be explained only on the background of the incorporation of the kingdom into the Assyrian world economy and the wave of refugees that came from the Northern Kingdom; C) There is no evidence for a demographic decrease in Jerusalem in the late 7^th century B.C.